Light is the building block of every photograph, and today there are tools that allow artists to shape light creatively. The proper illumination of a subject being photographed is often important in the production of high quality photography, and photographers utilize a wide variety of lighting devices in achieving the desired illumination. Artificial illumination includes direct lighting and indirect lighting, and a variety of light reflectors, flash units, strobes, and other light sources are employed to achieve the desired result. Typically, the light source is stationary with respect to the subject being photographed and the camera, and the intensity of the illumination, the distance of the illuminating devices from the subject, the reflective quality of the subject, the aperture setting of the camera, and the lens to be used, all affect the illumination characteristics with respect to the end result achieved, and photographers often go to great lengths to achieve the desired lighting effect.
Digital cameras are used by a growing number of consumer and professional photographers. These cameras use an image sensor to capture images and digitally process the captured image to produce a digital image file, which is stored in a digital memory. Digital image files originating from a digital camera include the digital images and may also include metadata generated from the digital camera. Image metadata is non-picture information embedded in the digital image file in addition to the actual image data. The metadata can be relevant information fundamental to the camera's function at the time of image capture, such as shutter speed, aperture, focal length, date, time, etc.